Australia

Victoria experiences record net interstate migration: ABS

VICTORIA has recorded its highest net interstate migration in over forty years, according to figures released last week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Denise Carlton from the ABS said the latest figures from Australian Demographic Statistics, December Quarter 2014, reflected an ongoing trend of increasing population growth for Victoria.

Above: Australia seen from space at night / by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon.

"Victoria has experienced increasing population growth since 2011, with a net gain of 9,300 people from the rest of Australia in the last year alone," Ms Carlton said.

"Most of this increase for Victoria can be attributed to people moving from New South Wales (2,700 movers), with South Australia (2,100), Western Australia (1,400) and Queensland (1,100) the next largest contributors."

While the population of all states and territories grew over the period, for half of them more people left than arrived from other parts of Australia.

One of the largest declines was in Western Australia, which saw its first year of negative net interstate migration since 2002 (a loss of 400 people this year, down from a gain of 5,200 in 2013).

Net overseas migration figures continue to decline, with the national total falling by 15 per cent in the last year.

"Western Australia saw a near-halving of its net overseas migration figures, which dropped from 36,100 in 2013 to 18,900 this year. Queensland's net overseas migration also fell from 35,100 to 24,200, a decline of 31 per cent. The Northern Territory's figures also fell by over half to 1,900 people," Ms Carlton said.

Overall, Australia's total population increased by 330,200 people to reach 23.6 million by the end of December 2014, a growth rate of 1.4 per cent.

Over the year, natural increase contributed 146,100 people to Australia's population, made up of 299,700 births (1.8 per cent lower than the previous year) and 153,600 deaths (4.7 per cent higher than the previous year).

In the same period, overseas migration contributed 184,100 people to the population (14.8 per cent lower than the previous year), and accounted for 56 per cent of Australia's total population growth.